logging off now. maybe also throwing my phone into the ocean, who’s to say

last lines from a thing I wrote back in April, just published in Ethics, Policy & Environment. Nominally in response to a paper (from last year) on wildlife conservation ethics, but mostly channeling my rage at *all this* “What is to be Done?” www.tandfonline.com/eprint/GVXJW...

hey look I wrote a thing that just got published

last lines from a thing I wrote back in April, just published in Ethics, Policy & Environment. Nominally in response to a paper (from last year) on wildlife conservation ethics, but mostly channeling my rage at *all this* “What is to be Done?” www.tandfonline.com/eprint/GVXJW...

“it goes against our president’s laws.” what a country this is

The big authoritarian creepiness of this is the students absolute certainty it is illegal for the professor to teach gender theory because the president said so

I think about this every day

Just a reminder that if the sovereign can't keep your life from being nasty, brutal, and short, the deal is off.

checks out

just came here to say that i love this movie so much. “Listers”- these guys are awesome and hilarious m.youtube.com/watch?v=zl-w...

Eastern Wood-Pewee photographed in Central Park (New York), 5-19-25

what my marriage is like

Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher Photographed on 1-5-25 in Garabito, Costa Rica Posting this today for no particular reason, beyond general good feelings this week about unusually long-tailed Tyrannus flycatchers

Here's another look at that forked-tailed flycatcher. check out that tail, huh?

the thing about this story is that nobody under the age of 45 or so could possibly understand how a phone call from *Time Magazine* would be, like, the coolest thing that could possibly happen when you're at your philosophy professor's office hours.

In college, I once went to Prof. MacIntyre's office hours... The phone rang. He took the call, listened, then said curtly to phone, 'I'm sorry, I can't help you now, I'm busy." He put down the receiver, snorted. "That was Time Magazine. They want to know what's wrong with morality in America today."

Here's another look at that forked-tailed flycatcher. check out that tail, huh?

Fork-Tailed Flycatcher Randalls Island (New York County) May 22, 2025 This is the first-ever recorded fork-tailed flycatcher in NY county (= borough of Manhattan)...No, I'm not the hero who found it. But I did at least get to see it, close. Lifer! Species #242 on my New York county list

In college, I once went to Prof. MacIntyre's office hours... The phone rang. He took the call, listened, then said curtly to phone, 'I'm sorry, I can't help you now, I'm busy." He put down the receiver, snorted. "That was Time Magazine. They want to know what's wrong with morality in America today."

personal update: I saw the bird

wow it's as if donald trump cares more about white people, all over the world, and sees it as his job to protect white people around the world to a variety of exaggerated and/or invented threats to their well-being. if only there were a word for that

As this is making the rounds, here's another fun tidbit: it was from talking with Isaiah Berlin that (the much younger) Jack Rawls first got interested in Rousseau's Social Contract. go ahead, ask me how I know this.

ok but

administering the one big beautiful final exam for my spring Shax course

good old Jack

Caesar's double-bed is warm As an unimportant clerk Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK On a pink official form. Unendowed with wealth or pity, Little birds with scarlet legs, Sitting on their speckled eggs, Eye each flu-infected city. -Auden, "The Fall of Rome"

greeted by a yellow warbler singing brightly in a tree on my block- a new bird for my home patch list! (12th warbler species for this location, bringing the total to 50 overall. Not bad for Manhattan- that’s nearly 1/5 of the birds I’ve seen in the county.)

sitting in a bench in the little park down the street from where I live, and there’s an older man playing “over the rainbow” on harmonica with his big dog howling plaintively along

just saw a tweet about “managers” that I momentarily misread as “mergansers” and I’ll just say I wish there were more talk on here about the latter

went to a party where they played Ravel’s string quartet

my proudest public-facing accomplishment of late

the main thing i don’t understand about this website is where is everyone

For the longest time I was under the impression that The Bulwark was a Lutheran publication (ein feste Burg etc). fwiw, found it very impressive, as such

hmmm i wonder what will be today’s one weird trick to enable the Dem party establishment to regain voters’ confidence without risk of discomfiting the big donors

"our revels now are ended" (except for the end-of-term grading)

it went ok. fumbled a bit, but had a few fresh (to me) thoughts about the play that seemed to resonate with students... doubt i'll to it again, tho... this rough magic etc

Frank Capra movies always get to me.

as there’s crying-in-movies discourse on here today, I’ll make a confession: I never cry over sad stuff in movies. I dunno what this says about me, I just don’t. what gets me weepy in movies is when someone is unexpectedly (morally) brave. gets me every time, if i don’t see it coming

rn what i’m feeling is that you can either be on team Tempest, or you can be on team Winter’s Tale, your choice. I know which side I’m on, that’s all.

Final exam. Last student turning in her bluebook shyly asks to take a selfie with me. I guess that’s a good sign?

randomly reminded that when i signed up for an intermediate german language course in my first semester of grad school, it was taught by a young(ish) instructor named Eric Santner. Mostly undergrads- I had just been hanging out in Berlin, so was just there to learn the mechanics

thinking about the difference between Shax’s MND and Tempest. In MND, everything that happens that night is vividly actual- it doesn’t occur to anyone to think they were dreaming until the next morning. In Tempest it all feels unreal- imexplicable, indescribable- at the time

Twenty years into this whole career of reading carefully business, I feel fundamentally justified in my theory that one of the most precious interactions with a text is being so confused that you spend decades hung up on some weird off-putting thing that you can't let go of in that reading.

this

you’ve got me there. i confess. i made it up. in fact the entire nightjar family is a complete fabrication of mine, for the purpose of vexing and confusing the public. www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Chuck-...

Chuck-will’s- widow? You’re screwing with us. There’s no such thing.

I have a lot of work that needs to get done today, and as the work stubbornly fails to get done on it own, I begin to suspect that I may have to intervene personally

my kind of funny story slate.com/culture/2025...

saw a kingfisher in brooklyn today

Read a book